{"id":753,"date":"2014-11-29T09:46:31","date_gmt":"2014-11-28T20:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/crocc\/?p=753"},"modified":"2014-11-29T09:47:58","modified_gmt":"2014-11-28T20:47:58","slug":"colonial-worlds-elemental-histories-symposium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/crocc\/colonial-worlds-elemental-histories-symposium\/","title":{"rendered":"Colonial Worlds Elemental Histories Symposium"},"content":{"rendered":"

A\u00a0one-day elemental histories symposium, a\u00a0Centre for Research on Colonial Culture event, was held on 31st<\/sup> October, at the Hocken Collections. \u2018Colonial Worlds Elemental Histories<\/strong><\/span>\u2019 began with a keynote address \u00a0from Grace Karskens, Associate Professor, UNSW. Her stories of early settlers (1802-1830s) who farmed the fertile but flood-prone Castlereagh region west of Sydney, revealed dogged determination in the face of repeated devastation. The settlers developed a culture of risk-taking and opportunity that underlay their fatalistic attitude towards the Australian bush.<\/p>\n

Professor Tom Brooking\u2019s paper \u2018Yeotopia Gained: New Zealand 1840-1914\u2019 explained how by 1914 most farming in New Zealand was carried out by family concerns but on someone else\u2019s land. The changes in land ownership revealed a fracturing of a flawed dream.<\/p>\n

\u2018Elementally United: The Case of Canterbury\u2019s Nor\u2019west Wind\u2019 by Katie Pickles exhorted us to think with our senses. The wind, a dominant force in shaping emotion is both felt and seen in the landscape.<\/p>\n

Dr Michael Davis\u2019s paper entitled \u2018Entangled Knowledges: Indigenous and Environmental Histories across the Tasman\u2019, featured the botanical explorations and friendships between New Zealander William Colenso, Australian Allan Cunningham and Englishman Joseph Dalton Hooker.<\/p>\n

In \u2018Getting to Know You: People and Rabbits in Southern New Zealand\u2019, Emeritus Professor Peter Holland presented a collation of information culled from diaries and ledgerbooks of rural farms and stations. Across southern New Zealand rabbit densities varied with swings in weather and climate, and interactions between people and rabbits changed.<\/p>\n

By contrast Dr Vaughan Wood examined a single but detailed diary for his paper \u2018Mapping the network of a nineteenth century Canterbury farm.\u2019 He was able to plot, trips to the store, post office, friends and relations. Asymmetric patterns of movement across farms were governed by swampy land. These farming men, he concluded were an integral part of community.<\/p>\n

After lunch Dr Michael Roche gave us an exposition on \u2018The Forest as an Elemental Natural Resource in Colonial New Zealand and the First Failure of Scientific State Forestry, 1874 to 1877.\u2019 These three years saw the introduction of scientific forestry brought by Captain Campbell Walker, who had a career with the Indian Forest Service in Madras and had studied orthodox German practice.<\/p>\n

Continuing with the forestry theme Dr Andr\u00e9 Brett provided us with \u2018Forests and Provincial Abolition: Did Conservation Kill the Provinces?\u2019 Forest conservation enjoyed prominent supporters in the political and scientific communities during the provincial era, but it failed to capture the public imagination.<\/p>\n

Dr James Beattie\u2019s paper \u2018Expanding the Horizons of Chinese Environmental History: Cantonese gold-miners in colonial New Zealand, 1860s-1920s\u2019, used the experiences Chinese working alluvial gold in Otago to explain how their traditional knowledge of water management techniques coupled with hard work and tenacity changed the landscape. One entrepreneurial family Choie Sew Hoy was particularly important in the dredging boom of the 1890s.<\/p>\n

PhD Candidate Lucy Mackintosh shared her research on Auckland\u2019s several park-scapes. Her paper \u2018Shifting Grounds: Narratives of Identity in Auckland Landscapes\u2019 examined the urban environment with its monuments. \u2018Our parks\u2019 she claims \u2018so often valued for their natural features, are also rich repositories of stories about the past.\u2019<\/p>\n

Continuing the theme of public spaces, Dr Joanna Cobley\u2019s paper \u2018The Nineteenth Century Landscape: economics, heritage and national identity\u2019 looked at the heritage site of Tongariro National Park. Gifted to the nation in 1887 this first National Park is still viewed within the frameworks of useful and beautiful.<\/p>\n

In the final paper of the day Eric Pawson \u2018Writing environmental history\u2019 asked the delegates for their input on an article he was finishing for the International Encyclopedia of Geography.<\/p>\n

At a small function also held at the Hocken the book James Beattie and Matthew Henry launched their book Climate, Science, and Colonization: Histories from Australia and New Zealand<\/em>,<\/a> by James Beattie, Matthew Henry and Emily O\u2019Gorman (eds). Palgrave MacMillan, London, 2014. Emily O\u2019Gorman was unable to attend the function.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Rosi Crane for supplying this report.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A\u00a0one-day elemental histories symposium, a\u00a0Centre for Research on Colonial Culture event, was held on 31st October, at the Hocken Collections. \u2018Colonial Worlds Elemental Histories\u2019 began with a keynote address \u00a0from Grace Karskens, Associate Professor, UNSW. Her stories of early settlers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15374,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17444],"tags":[17474,39608,33977,34003,66],"class_list":["post-753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-symposium","tag-crocc","tag-elemental-histories","tag-environmental-history","tag-tom-brooking","tag-university-of-otago"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/crocc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/crocc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/crocc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/crocc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15374"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/crocc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/crocc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/crocc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/crocc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/crocc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}